January 26th, 2017 | by weshareinterests | published in FEATURE, TRAVEL | Comments Off on Ricepaper Magazine & Talkrice Travel Series
| STAFF – Started in 1994, Ricepaper Magazine is a Canadian literary outfit based in Vancouver and the longest running organization in the country dedicated to the promotion of Asian Canadian literature, culture, and arts. While it showcases Asian Canadian content and has historically dedicated its efforts to all things this, its team today recognizes […]
May 22nd, 2016 | by weshareinterests | published in FEATURE, LITERATURE & VOCAB | Comments Off on Congee-nial Contact – From Chow to How
| [PLAY] It happens so fast. Take your eye off for a second. Never think it’ll happen till it does. And the pain. That feeling! So comfortable. On a cold, rainy Vancouver night, it is light when there is dark. In climate like this, it’s immeasurably good. And now you’ve paid the price. You failed […]
February 28th, 2016 | by weshareinterests | published in FASHION, FILM & MUSIC, FEATURE | Comments Off on Godfrey Gao
| I discovered supermodel Godfrey Gao grew up in the same neighborhood as me in North Van. We went to the same high-school and moved on to the same college around the same time and we share the same ethnicity. The natural progression of things here is obviously to conjure up what-ifs before settling for […]
November 25th, 2015 | by weshareinterests | published in FEATURE, SOCIAL SCIENCES | Comments Off on Centre A – Goonj! Being Brown in Chinatown
| Last summer, a friend invited me to an event at Centre A, Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. I had seen Centre A years ago and thought it was a great idea, an excellent addition to Vancouver’s cultural landscape. It existed in the bottom suite of the old Interurban Railway building now the […]
August 25th, 2015 | by weshareinterests | published in FEATURE, SOCIAL SCIENCES | Comments Off on A Call to Social Scientists — Segmenting Population & the Inadequacy of English
| Anyone of Asian descent born or mostly raised outside of the motherlands, particularly, in English-speaking nations like Canada, the US, Australia, and England share so many similarities in terms of history and interests that I am surprised academia has not coined a term that groups these populations and that allows us to talk about […]
July 29th, 2015 | by weshareinterests | published in FEATURE, LITERATURE & VOCAB | Comments Off on Ming & Yuka – The Week that Was, their Love that Is
| I used to work in a nice building downtown that was shown in a Tony Hawk game which means something to some and nothing to others. One summer there, I met a woman named Yuka. Mike: “Hey we’re gonna have a temp here for a week, a student from one of those ESL schools.” […]
July 21st, 2015 | by weshareinterests | published in FEATURE, LITERATURE & VOCAB | Comments Off on Esther Lee and Remmington Chow Got Together
| 2010. Olympics year. 30 year. Back in Vancouver after nights and days in my “F”th floor apartment on Bangbae’s Café Golmok (방배 카페골목) thinking about culture shock and how I would ever bring myself to working in Canada. Here would be no there. English education isn’t a pillar of the Vancouver economy unlike Seoul’s […]
August 12th, 2014 | by weshareinterests | published in FEATURE, LITERATURE & VOCAB | Comments Off on Gavin Meet Garrett, Hmong
955 pm. It’s 2005. Fall. Or was it spring? Evening classes end on Pyeongchon’s Hagwon-ga. Rows upon rows of buses (some like Greyhounds, others like mini-vans) are lined up against the curb. Drivers are standing around, smoking cigarettes, wishing they had cigarettes, bumming cigarettes. They’re there to wait. Wait for…it. Within minutes, hundreds of bodies […]
August 1st, 2014 | by weshareinterests | published in FEATURE, SOCIAL SCIENCES | Comments Off on Role Models-James Shigeta (1929-2014)
I’ve thought about the terms “Asian Canadian” and “Asian American” quite a bit for a number of years now. What I find especially interesting is how when I look at the motherlands, I see strained relations and a very tense environment fuelled by border disputes, arguments about history, and conflict over resources. On the other […]